


didn't want to say goodbye

by Roadkill2580



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, F/M, SasuSakuMonth 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 18:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2036127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadkill2580/pseuds/Roadkill2580
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sasuke knows he is dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	didn't want to say goodbye

Sasuke knows he is dying. He can feel his life slipping away along with his blood, can feel the weight of death pressing heavy on his bones. With every breath is a wet rattle in his chest. Above him Sakura presses her small hands to the gaping wound in his torso. Her healing chakra winds into his body like gossamer threads, thin and delicate. He barely has enough chakra to keep his Sharingan activated but he needs it to see her in his final moments. He needs the almost painful detail and accuracy of his brother’s eyes.

 

Sasuke has many regrets. If only he had known the truth, he wants to tell his team. If only he had known. He wouldn’t have left. He wouldn’t have tried to kill them. He wouldn’t have killed his brother. He wouldn’t have become the very thing he had spent so long loathing. And now it’s too late. Sasuke has been in enough death matches to know that there is no coming back from a wound like this. He has many regrets but Sakura won’t be one of them, he thinks.

 

His eyes take in the expression of worry and determination and concentration on his teammate’s face. Her forehead is furrowed, proud diamond shaped seal etched on its surface. Her lips are slightly pursed and sweat is dripping down her face. It takes nearly everything he has to lift his hand to cradle her face.

 

Her vivid green eyes widen and meet his. “Sasuke?” He sees Naruto move in his periphery and he can hear his voice but it sounds muffled. All of Sasuke’s attention is only for Sakura now.

 

“Sakura…I need to tell you…” he is interrupted by a wet hack as blood floods his lungs. Sakura cuts in before he can regain his voice.

 

“Sasuke, don’t talk right now, you need to save your strength!” her chakra presses into him harder, still with needle point precision. He manages a weak scoff. He’s trying to speak his dying words and she won’t let him talk.

 

“So annoying. You’re a medic. You should know…there’s no point in me saving my strength. I’m going to die,” Sasuke says. Naruto erupts at his words, predictable as ever.

 

“Shut up bastard! There’s no way you can die! You promised dammit. You promised we would go back to Konoha together and be Team 7 again. You can’t break promises like that! Just let Sakura-chan take care of you. She definitely won’t let you die,” Naruto’s speech is passionate and as fueled by emotion as ever. Team 7. One of Sasuke’s biggest regrets. The Uchiha were the family he was born with but Team 7 is the family he chose. They were bonds he could not sever. Even still, Sasuke can’t let whatever is between him and Sakura remain unsaid. She needs to know.

 

“Naruto is right, Sasuke-kun. Don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control,” her voice is mostly even, tinged with a bit of worry and desperation. How like Sakura to try and pretend everything is going to be okay.

 

“It’s okay, Sakura. I know I don’t have long…you need to know this. Then I can die,” Sasuke draws another breath and fights against the darkness that is starting spread and settle over his consciousness.

 

“It was always you…I would never even consider anyone else…if things were different. If I lived, if I hadn’t left, it would be you, Sakura.”

 

There’s a stunned silence as Sakura takes in his words and their meaning. His arm falls to the hard ground with finality. He is satisfied. There’s still so much that Sasuke wants to finish, wants to change, wants to do. But this is enough. He is content with this, knowing that Sakura knows the truth of his feelings even if she never learns the truth to anything else.

 

Not even all of her shinobi training can disguise the hitch in her breathing. Her eyes become glassy until the tears well up enough that they spill down her cheeks. “Sasuke-kun, don’t talk like that! You’re going to be all right. I can heal you, you won’t die.”

 

Sasuke tries for a smile but he doesn’t know if he succeeds or if it is little more than a grimace. One more thing, he thinks. “Don’t cry, Sakura…it’s going to be okay. Take care…take care of the dead last. I won’t be there…so keep him from doing anything too stupid.” One more breath left. Sasuke makes sure that belongs to Sakura too.

 

“Thank you.”

 

-

 

He wakes up slowly. His vision is blurry and clouded by the last dredges of sleep. He’s looking at…a ceiling? A white tiled ceiling. He’s trying to place where he is, what happened the last time he was awake, what’s going on, when a weight drops onto his legs.

 

“Bastard! About time you woke up. I have some questions for you,” Naruto dramatically points his finger in Sasuke’s face. Sasuke vaguely wishes he had the speed and energy to break it or at least toss Naruto on the floor. He closes his eyes and counts to ten. If there is anything Sasuke has learned it is that he is too impulsive by far and that taking the time to think before speaking can do wonders for social interaction of any sort.

 

“Dead last. Get off.” Sasuke says curtly. In a show of ignoring him, Naruto bounces on Sasuke’s legs before clambering off the bed. He drags a plastic chair over to Sasuke’s bed side with a loud scrape before he plops down. There is a familiar childish scowl on his face that tells Sasuke that whatever Naruto has to say to him is not serious and that he just wants to pick a ridiculous argument.

 

“What the hell did you mean when you told Sakura-chan to take care of me, huh? Didn’t you know it’s the guy who’s supposed to take care of the girl? And I don’t act stupid!” Naruto adds defensively. Sasuke blinks in confusion. Then the memories come rushing back and Sasuke fights to sit upright.

 

“I’m alive? I didn’t die?” his mind is stuck on the fact that he survived a wound of the magnitude that Madara had dealt him. It should’ve been impossible. His rib cage had been crushed. There had been a gaping hole in his chest. He experimentally brushes his hand down his chest. It feels whole and unmarred.

 

“Tch, of course you didn’t die! Sakura-chan was healing you and she’s the best medic there is. Except for maybe Tsunade-baachan,” Naruto’s voice is full of confidence in Sakura’s skill. And why wouldn’t he be, Sasuke thinks, if Sakura could breathe life into what should have been his corpse. At the thought of Sakura, Sasuke abruptly remembers what he said to her. Blood rushes to his face and heat creeps up his neck to the tips of his ears.

 

During this precise moment the door slides open and in steps Sakura. Even in the hospital Sakura is in her preferred crimson shinobi fatigues though he notes that these seem fresh. Her eyes meet his and it appears that she is also remembering exactly what he said as well because a light blush dusts her cheeks.

 

Naruto seems to sense the change in the atmosphere. A sly grin spreads across his face. “Well, I’ll just leave you two alone to catch up. I’m sure you have lots to talk about.” He snickers. “But don’t think I won’t be back!” He brushes past Sakura into the hallway beyond. As the silence between him and Sakura starts to become awkward, Sasuke tries to will someone into walking into the room. His eyes drift down to his feet underneath the blankets while he hopes maybe instead a hole will swallow him up.

 

Sakura coughs into her hand. “You’ve been asleep for three days. You lost consciousness on the battlefield and after that I kept you in a medically induced coma so you could heal. You’re in Konoha now.” She goes on to list all of his maladies using medical jargon that Sasuke doesn’t understand. He listens with only half an ear. He is alive. He is alive and he is lying in a bed across from the girl who saved his life, who might mean everything to him. He wishes his body would reabsorb the blood from his face.

 

“Sasuke-kun? Did you…did you mean what you said?” He knows exactly she is talking about. They both know. Years ago Sakura might have left the massive elephant alone but he is not the only one who has changed.

 

“I was dying.” The words slip out of his mouth before he can consider how they might sound.

 

“Oh,” her voice goes flat and hard. The unfamiliarity of it prompts him to meet her eyes again. He clenches his fist and huffs a breath. Sakura senses that he has something to add because she doesn’t leave but Sasuke sees her stance shift subtly, her body stiffening in hurt and anger.

 

“I was dying,” he repeats. “I thought…I thought it was the only chance I had to tell you.” He finishes lamely. Sasuke has never been good at expressing himself verbally but he hopes that Sakura is still good at understanding him. He keeps his eyes trained on her face and so doesn’t miss the smile that blooms there.

 

“Well, next time I say you aren’t dying, you’ll listen to me, won’t you?” her voice is light now, the way it was so long ago. Sasuke misses this, misses her, misses all of them. There are a great deal of things he still has to work out in his head but he doesn’t have to do it alone now. And the one thing he knows for certain is that he doesn’t want to lose them all again.

 

Her expression gentles into something soft and warm. That smile is precious. He will make sure she will always have a reason to smile like that.

 

“It was always you too, Sasuke-kun.”


End file.
